Whether this segregation of the colored people in localities more or less apart from the white population of Canada was a good thing for the refugees has been questioned. Dr. S. G. Howe studied the life of this class in Canada in 1862 as the representative of the United States Freedman's Inquiry Commission, and wrote a report which is indispensable for a knowledge of the conditions surrounding the colored settlers in the provinces. He summarizes his judgment as follows: "The negroes, going into an inhabited and civilized country, should not be systematically congregated in communities. Their natural affinities are strong enough to keep up all desirable relations without artificial encouragement. Experience shows that they do best when scattered about, and forming a small proportion of the whole community. "Next, the discipline of the colonies, though it only subjects the negroes to what is considered useful apprenticeship, does prolong a dependence which amounts almost to servitude; and does not convert them so surely into hardy, self-reliant men, as the rude struggle with actual difficulties, which they themselves have to face and to overcome, instead of doing so through an agent. "Taken as a whole, the colonists have cost to somebody a great deal of money and a great deal of effort; and they have not succeeded so well as many who have been thrown entirely upon their own resources.... "It is just to say that some intelligent persons, friends of the colored people, believe that in none of the colonies, not even in Buxton, do they succeed so well, upon the whole, as those who are thrown entirely upon their own resources."[620] [620] _The Refugees from Slavery in Canada West_, pp. 69, 70. Upon examination, these objections do not seem to be well grounded. It is noteworthy that of the prime movers in the organization of the three colonies we have considered, two, Josiah Henson and Henry Bibb, were themselves fugitive slaves; the third, the Rev. William King, had been at one time a slave-owner, and the fourth, the Rev. Hiram Wilson, was a missionary among the refugees for many years. These men were persons of wide observation and experience among fugitive slaves. It is safe to say that there were no men in Canada that knew better the disadvantages under which the average fugitive, just arrived from the South, was called upon to begin the struggle for a livelihood. And it will be admitted that there were none in or out of Canada more zealous and self-sacrificing in promoting the refugee's interests. These men evidently believed that the fugitive was not in a condition to do the best for himself upon his first arrival on free soil, that he needed to be delivered in some degree from the weight of his ignorance, and guided in his wholesome ambition to secure a home.